As long as the living being, under illusion, accepts the
body or the mind as the soul, he will always be unhappy,
like a man in the burning heat of autumn. But when the
same living being becomes a devotee of Lord Sri Krsna, the
Personality of Godhead, he at once lives a soothing life, as if
under the cooling rays of the moon in autumn. Lord Sri Krsna
is SO merciful that He descends to reclaim suffering human-
ity and preaches the Bhagavad-gita with the intense desire
that all living beings give up all of their engagements and
take shelter of His lotus feet. This is the most confidential
part of all revealed scripture.

The example of the damsels of VrajabhGmi Vmndavana (the
gopis) is given here because these eternal consorts of the
Lord terribly suffered the separation of Lord Krsna when the
Lord was absent from their presence for His engagement in
tending the cows in the forest. During the absence of Krsna
the entire day would appear to the gopis to be as unbearable
as a hot day in autumn. The Lord so much appreciated this
natural feeling of the gopis that He declared His inability to
repay their intense love. Lord Caitanya recommended the
feeling of the gopis as the highest mode of worship that can
be rendered to the Lord. The conclusion is that the regular
practice of bhakti-yoga will lead the devotee to the plane of
intense love for the Lord, and that is the single qualification
by which the conditioned soul is allowed to reenter the
eternal life of bliss in the kingdom of God. The threefold
miseries of material existence are at once nullified by in-
tense love of God, which is the ultimate goal of cultivating
the human Spirit.

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